Year later, Hadiya's parents still grieve -- and hope

Schoolgirl's homicide moved nation, and Pendletons look for something positive from her death

January 29, 2014|By Colleen Mastony, Tribune reporter

(John J. Kim, Chicago Tribune)

She had come through a few long and hard days. Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton lay on the couch and watched TV. She tried to lose herself in the images flickering on the screen. Her body ached, her very soul seemed exhausted, and she simply wanted to hide from the world.

Then, she heard a noise in the kitchen. She got up to investigate and, on the counter, she found a months-old Mother's Day card that had fallen from a high shelf. She opened it, and a little cartoon mermaid began to sing.

You're so charming and disarming,

Just how loving you are.

So understanding, undemanding,

you're the best by far!

The bottom of the card was signed by her children: Junior and Hadiya.

To Cowley-Pendleton, it felt like a message from heaven. "Any card could have fallen," she said. Instead, it was the Mother's Day card, carrying words of encouragement she desperately needed to hear.

Wednesday marks a year since 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed while seeking shelter from the rain in a South Side park. But in small moments like this one, her parents say they feel their daughter is still with them — encouraging them to move forward, to embrace life and to do good in the world.

To that end, they have started Hadiya's Foundation, a fledgling organization they hope will eventually partner with police, schools and after-school programs. Their most urgent wish is that something positive will come of their daughter's death. They still don't know what that might be, but they have resolved to search for and somehow find meaning.

"There has to be a reason for this," said Cowley-Pendleton, 38, sitting barefoot on her couch on a recent day, her husband, Nathaniel Pendleton, 43, at her side, and photos and mementos of their slain daughter everywhere in the Bronzeville apartment.

"Purpose comes in many different forms. It could be the (public) discussion alone was the purpose (for her death). It could be things that are yet to come and yet to be seen," she said. "I don't think all the answers have to be clear right now."

A year ago, Hadiya Pendleton was a sophomore at the elite King College Prep High School who had just finished her final exams. She was hanging out with friends in a park a few blocks from school when a gunman — who allegedly mistook the students for a group of rival gang members — jumped a fence and opened fire.

Hadiya was shot in the back, and by the time her parents reached the hospital, she was gone.

The killing blindsided the Pendletons, who had never worried about violence intruding into their middle-class lives. "Never in a million years were we concerned for her safety," said Cowley-Pendleton, who works as a consultant at a credit bureau in Chicago and whose husband runs a catering business.

"We had her on the right track, we had the conversations we needed to have, emphasizing and re-emphasizing that you have to do right. And then for this element to come and snatch her from us," Cowley-Pendleton said. "Anyone who has lost a loved one looks for all the reasons why something like this would occur. Why?"

Within a few short days, the image of dimple-cheeked Hadiya was being beamed repeatedly from television news broadcasts as a symbol of Chicago's gun violence. The Pendletons fielded calls from the mayor's office and eventually from the White House. First lady Michelle Obama attended Hadiya's funeral, and days later, the Pendletons were seated next to the first lady at the State of the Union address.

That attention was an honor and a comfort, they say. But after the cameras moved on, the Pendletons had to deal with the reality of their daughter's empty bedroom.

"I still don't want to believe that she's not here," said Pendleton, his eyes filling with tears.

In the aftermath of their daughter's death, they went to Washington to lobby for tougher gun laws. Cowley-Pendleton appeared in an ad sponsored by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and she stood with President Barack Obama as he delivered a speech at the White House in March on the need for tougher gun control legislation.

A number of gun control measures, some bearing Hadiya's name, surfaced in Congress, but by April the Senate had voted down any new restrictions after the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups waged an aggressive campaign.

The couple said they are angry and frustrated over the legislative defeat but that they will continue their efforts.

"We would have felt so much better had a bill passed — had Hadiya's bill passed — but the only thing we can do at this point is to keep fighting," Pendleton said. "I'm not just going to sit down and cry that it's over. It's not over. They're still going to keep hearing the voices from us and all the parents who have lost kids," he said.